The Lazarus news I would never have believed

COMMENT: In the late '80s, I loved watching big Glenn Lazarus hit it up for the Blues.

Glenn Lazarus in Canberra with Clive Palmer and Ricky Muir.

Lazarus at Blues training in the 90s.

Comment

I didn't watch the State of Origin series this year. I still haven't bothered to connect the aerial since we moved south from Sin City so we can't get WIN. Missed one helluva series, I'm told.

Way back in the day I used to get maybe a little too excited about Origin. I'd drive from Sydney to the Gong especially and link up with a crew of mad mates; we'd put on hard hats, boots and footy jumpers, clear the furniture from some lounge room or other and go ballistic. We had tackle bags one year. I'd scream 'til it hurt and make a git of myself.

Not so much nowadays.

''Who's the Prime Minister gonna be? 'You don't want to know about that tonight mate. Just enjoy the footy.' ''

In the late '80s though, I particularly loved watching big Glenn Lazarus hit it up for the Blues. A colossus, Roy and HG christened him The Brick with Eyes. Lazarus was a battering ram. A human tank shell. I worried about him though - all those blows to the head; they couldn't be doing him much good.

Had someone told me back on one of those footy-crazed nights in Fairy Meadow as I watched Glenn's concrete skull smash into another Queenslander's knee, "Hey, see that big chunk of a guy? The Brick With Eyes?

Well 25 years from now, he's going to take a seat in the Senate."

Bull (belch).

"Yes he will. He's going to be shanghaied into Clive Palmer's party."

Clive who?

"Ahh, 25 years from now you'll know all about Clive. He'll be a morbidly obese gazillionaire mining tycoon who first starts making headlines by erecting giant dinosaurs around his five star golf resort in Queensland."

Eh?

"Then he'll build an exact replica of Titanic. In China."

Oh bugger off, I'm watching the footy.

"You should listen, Hendo. The Brick With Eyes and others in the Palmer United Party are actually going to be a very powerful political force."

Yeah?

"Yeah. While Palmer United will only win one seat in the House of Reps - Clive himself - they'll have three senators taking office in July 2014."

Glenn f---ing Lazarus?!

"Yep. And they'll form a bloc with Ricky Muir. Four Senate seats. They'll be able to decide what becomes law and what doesn't."

Ricky who?

"You'll find out. Ricky will work in a sawmill. He'll stand for the Senate in Victoria at the 2013 election for the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party and he'll win - with a record-low primary vote of just 0.51 per cent."

Eh? The what party?

"AMEP - they'll be a bunch of guys who just love the buggery out of off-road driving. By the way, Clive will love cars, too. He'll arrive at Parliament House in a chauffeur-driven vintage Rolls-Royce."

Oh turn it up.

"Sometimes in a $468,000 gull-wing Mercedes Benz SLS roadster."

Yeah, right. What's this Ricky Stuart gonna be like?

"Ricky Muir."

Sorry, Ricky Muir. What are his politics going to be?

"It'll be hard to say. He won't speak to the media much. He won't even speak to the PM."

Who's the Prime Minister gonna be?

"You don't want to know about that tonight mate. Just enjoy the footy. Suffice to say that when most people hear the name Ricky Muir, they'll bring to mind a man holding kangaroo crap."

You said there were four Senate seats this Palmer guy is going to control. Who will the other two be?

"Well, there'll be Jackie Lambie; she'll be from Tassie and will have served in the Army. She'll ascend to the rank of corporal but will have that reduced after she's charged with assaulting a fellow soldier while she's pissed. She'll also like her men to be 'well-hung'."

Wow, a Chinese-born senator? That's awesome! So at least this Clive Palmer will be a racially tolerant leader, huh?

"Well, not really. Clive will go on national TV to decry the Chinese as 'bastards' and 'mongrels' who 'shoot their own people' and who want to take over Australia's ports. A little later Jackie Lambie will claim Australia is under the threat of a Chinese military invasion."

Oh my God! China's going to invade Australia?

"Of course not. But Lambie's comments will enrage Australian businesses who say she could single-handedly destroy our trade with China."

Hang on, so how will Palmer and Lambie get away with making such stupid, outrageous and racially inflammatory statements while in public office?

"Because we let them."

Geez . . . and the Brick With Eyes is really going to be a senator, eh? I'll be buggered.